Reflections on a YouTube Video
BHASKAR SUNKARA
It’s all delightfully Orwellian: rallying working people with anti-establishment rhetoric to serve the establishment. 96 percent of these people received tax cuts under Barack Obama yet they’re suddenly “politicized” enough to participate in anti-tax rallies. Despite the natural inclination, I try to avoid contempt for the teabaggers– right-wing populism does have its roots in real antagonisms. As much as I like the Bill Mahers and Sean Penns of the world, it seems like liberal “multiculturalists’” and Hollywood psuedo-radicals’ wrath are reserved only for the “redneck idiots,” while capital is left unscathed. When watching the video I noticed that just like Obama’s mantras of “hope” and “change,” Sarah Palin’s energy and folksy charm are blank canvases devoid of any genuine context. Summoning my inner-Debord, I’m tempted to label this the spectacle’s psuedo-politics. Of course, the hopes that the American people had for Obama were “progressive.” They embodied their dreams for the future; a fair share of the pie, a decent social safety net and the end of permanent war. On the other hand, Palin’s supporters, like all reactionaries, are motivated by fear. Fear of the Others. The barbarians outside the gates of Rome and those who would subvert her from within. This fear creates the desire for a leader to protect and defend. It is the timeless hysteria of reaction. It’s not a stretch to label the Right’s baseless Red-baiting of Obama as racially charged and not unlike the anti-communism used against Black activists during the Civil Rights-era. In their delusion, Obama’s “Un-American” skin tone has to be augmented by an “Un-American” radical agenda. Yet, another of the Right’s narratives, liberals as corporatist technocrats… would-be Philosopher Kings trying to impose from above on the polity, isn’t an entirely false depiction of the liberal worldview, the depoliticizing corporatism they strive for and the lack of democratic accountability hardwired into the core of the Republic.
Internationally, we see not only murderous, but utterly inept, liberal imperialism facing off against a demagogic fundamentalism that seems to have, with the support of large segments of the international left, wrestled a monopoly over the word “resistance.” It’s easy to recall Walter Benjamin’s famous quote, “Every rise of Fascism bears witness to a failed revolution,” as the situation in Afghanistan seems to confirm Benjamin’s thesis on a daily basis. In a bloody farce, a motley crew of narco-capitalists, warlords and NATO forces are trying to hold off Pashtun nationalists, some other warlords and a core of obscurantist, Islamist cadre.
On the other side of the world Hugo Chavez, “anti-imperialist” extraordinaire, one of the great hopes of the contemporary left, sings praises for Robert Mugabe, Iranian theocrats and the late Idi Amin. Chavez also asserts that Venezuelan-born leftist-terrorist Carlos the Jackal has his full support and is a “revolutionary hero.” (If the former PFLP-combatant Carlos the Jackal’s open embrace of the doctrine of Jihadism and Osama Bin-Laden while in prison doesn’t tell us something about the character of "anti-imperialism" and the psuedo-left, I don’t know what does.) Chavez’s comments came at a “International Meeting of Parties of the Left” where the leader sought to encourage the building of a new 5th International. Marx and Engels played leading roles in the First. Kautsky and Luxemburg in the Second. Lenin in the Third. And Trotsky in the Fourth. Four internationals. Four histories of defeat and regression for the workers’ movement. But this time around I suppose we’ll have Chavez and George Galloway to usher in the international soviet. Hyperbole aside, a united Socialist Party of Latin America would be a tremendous advance, but building it on the back of loose alliances between left-nationalist parties, some of whom are actively managing capitalist states, and their reactionary friends abroad, doesn’t sound like a winning gameplan if the agenda is truly anti-capitalist.
This bleak picture shows gaps that can be best filled by the revival of a Marxian Left. The task is not only picking up the pieces and rebuilding (action), but also contesting a segment of the left’s aversion to theory and introspection. Asserting the relevancy of critical theorists like; Marx, Lukacs, Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky and Adorno and critically appraising, instead of waxing-nostalgically about, the bitter defeats of the 1930s and 1960s. Meaningful politics and democracy will both remain effectively dead until an emancipatory Left can reconstitute itself, open up “space” to challenge capital and begin the long fight for hegemony. And if we fail, we better buckle down for an ecological nightmare, some more imperial misadventures, reactionary backlashes, Michael Bay-esque cinema and that thousand-year bobo Reich David Brooks gets wet-dreams about.
Great socialist thinker Karl Polanyi on the Fascist movement of the 1930s in the Great Transformation (1944):
“…there was a striking lack of relationship between its material and numerical strength and its political effectiveness. The very term ‘movement’ was misleading since it implied some kind of enrolment or personal participation of large numbers. If anything was characteristic of fascism, it was its independence of such popular manifestations. Though usually aiming at a mass following, its potential strength was reckoned not by the numbers of its adherents but by the influence of the persons in high position whose good will the fascist leaders posessed, and whose influence in the community could be counted upon to shelter them from the consequences of an abortive revolt, thus taking the risks out of revolution.
A country approaching the fascist phase showed symptoms among which the existence of a fascist movement proper was not necessarily one. At least as important signs were the spread of irrationalistic philosophies, racialist aesthetics, anticapitalist demagogy, heterodox currency views, criticism of the party system, widespread disparagement of the ‘regime,’ or whatever was the name given to the existing democratic setup… Hitler was eventually put in power by the feudalist clique around President Hindenburg, just as Mussolini and Primo de Rivera were ushered into office by their respective sovereigns. Yet Hitler had a vast movement to support him; Mussolini had a small one; Primo de Rivera had none. In no case was an actual revolution against constituted authority launched; fascist tactics were invariable those of a sham rebellion arranged with the tacit approval of the authorities who pretended to have been overwhelmed by force.”
This new Palin-led anti-establishment Teabagger strain in the Republican Party reminds me creepily of the spontaneous rise of the fascist movement in the wake of the Great Depression. We can’t afford to give them an inch. As Bill Fletcher Jr. said at this year’s Democratic Socialists of America convention, “They… are… dangerous!” It’s easy for college kids to laugh at how detached from reality they seem, but this movement is really frickin dangerous, and it is absolutely imperative that the democratic Left of this country effectively out-organize them in the years ahead.
The backlash against the inherent failures of capitalism can take very ugly forms. It’s up to us to guide popular outrage at the system in a constructive direction.
I wouldn’t fear “fascism” at all and I think the oppositional populist rhetoric will morph into run of the mill right-neoliberalism if ever in power, but what you say is right— we have to out organize them. The weakest politics we can fall into is the “fear of fear” (their fear). It’s a defensive, reactive politics that will keep us wedded to the lesser-evils in the center.
Yikers. An indictment of the American public education system if there ever was one. To be fair though, I’m sure you would have found a lot of confused and inarticulate people at Obama rallies last year that could only recite campaign slogans and had no idea what his actual policy proposals were.
I think this is an indictment of the educational system. That is a hard video to watch. I agree with Chris though I have known a lot of “liberals” who have a hard time articulating policies. I think the idea of gawking and pointing at the unwashed un-educated is as Bhashkar put it “liberals as corporatist technocrats… would-be Philosopher Kings trying to impose from above on the polity,” was right on. We should be engaging these people using populist language and showing them how they are being essentially scammed by a capitalist system that makes money of their backs. Obviously easier said than done but I agree engagement is the proper response not ridicule.
Of course, we should be engaging with everyone, but it’s not like the far left hasn’t been trying to do these sorts of things for the last century or so. We haven’t failed for lack of effort. At the moment I think the first steps would be to unite the left that can be united as leftists and form the sort of organization / proto-party that Bill Fletcher argued for at the end of his speech at the DSA convention (just got a chance to watch it a minute ago). From there the natural base for socialists would be politicizing students on campuses and introducing the idea of the necessity of structural change to the large liberal base.
I assume here that Fletcher is talking about the need for a transparent and democratic, but centralized socialist organization that would form the core of a new oppositional movement (not 3rd party electoral venture). The enthusiasm behind DSOC/DSA during the early years was that in a left prone to fragmenting into sects it was actually uniting and growing in size and influence. With our current balance of forces a lot of the activity or agitation we’re doing today (as socialists and not just as generic progressives working on important single-issues) is marginal. We are dealing with the strongest ruling class in human history and we are operating in the nerve-center of capital. Such a reality necessitates some radical thinking and solutions if the objective is a shot at contesting these powerful and dangerous movements and not just keeping up “the good fight.”
OMG, these people are effin stupid!
Ok, to all you teabaggers who want to get rid of “Socialism” –
Are you ready to pay for your own garbage removal, water/sewage, schools for your children ( now that’s a scary thought!), build your own roads, hire your own police/fire department, etc? Better yet, how many of you want to give up your monthly Social Security and Medicare (if you are eligible for both), since these are all given to you by our “Socialist” government?
*crickets*
The stupidity of these people never ceases to amuse me.